This is what Darren has just sent me
"I can log in fine, but when I try to do anything I get the message that says I do not have permission to access the page. It says the admin may have disabled my account"

Hi Duncan, hope you're well mate and looking after Ged for me
One of my students who you know both in training and here on MAP, Darren Cherry, or DJC as he is known here cannot access MAP anymore, it says he is blocked, can you look into it for him please, he doesn't often go on due to work but the last few months he has tried he. Cannot access either to comment or even message you to find out why.
Many thanks Duncan, hope to see you soon sometime

question: your group is in london, right? i am planning my third uk trip and accumulating possible people to go visit so as to have a concrete itinerary (and then cry at the monetary expenses involved in visiting everyone :p), and it'd be pretty cool to try out some BBT if possible :D.

The upward strike to uke's attacking arm makes sense in this case because it comes from Oguri-shihan. Oguri-shihan's posture because of his back was very low, perhaps similar to the originator of Gyokko Ryu who was either female or someone of small stature. If tori is shorter than uke, the strike must be upwards. The densho says that uke attacks with a migi geri. This means that is the best or only attack option uke has left. Hope this helps.

Tori steps out to the left to avoid the attack and lowers himself over his left leg to get outside of uke’s kick. Tori then stands up on his left leg, lifts his right knee, and pivots back to his right, executing a migi keri gaeshi to uke’s kicking leg. It is important that tori maintains kamae during this movement, so that his right hand falls onto uke’s right wrist, lightly grasping it. Tori then delivers a ****oken tsuki to uke’s rear butsumetsu kyusho while maintaining the light grab on uke’s wrist, forcing uke to the ground. Tori uses the grasp on uke's wrist and leverages uke onto his left side. Tori finishes the technique by delivering a migi kagato geri to uke’s butsumetsu, then performs ushiri tobi away from uke and recovers into ichimonji no kamae and zanshin.

Both uke and tori begin in hidari ichimonji no kamae. Uke steps forward with a migi jodan nioken tsuki. Tori steps out to the right, executes a hidari jodan daken uchi uke to uke’s nagare kyusho, then shifts his weight forward and delivers a migi nioken (palm towards tori) to the hoshi kyusho to break uke’s balance backwards over his spine. The strike is at an angle that causes uke's arm to go up over the top and towards the spine; uke's balance is rooted in his left foot, spine locked. Because of the precarious position that uke finds himself in, the only viable attack left to him before tori destroys him is a migi geri. If tori isn't paying attention, he will catch that geri right in the suigetsu, as he is quite close, allowing uke time to recover.

The version that Jeff showed me stressed something that for whatever reason I hadn't thought of before. Each and every attack by uke was to be the best possible attack that he had available to him at the time. Each attack was meant to be as "unbeatable" as possible. And yet tori was supposed to defeat it and keep leading uke deeper into the abyss. The final attitude that uke should have is something similar to, "Just kill me already. Stop toying with me like a cat (tiger) with a mouse." The first time I got it right, my uke told me the same thing I told Jeff when he performed Koku on me, "That ****ing sucked!"

I've very much enjoyed the discussion on Koku. I've often pondered the waza of Gyokko Ryu, trying to make sense of them over the years. Some years back I was taught the Ten Ryaku no Maki level by Jeff Christian, who got it from Oguri-shihan, and it blew my mind. Suddenly so many things about the ryuha made sense. What he showed me fit the "loose and open" description of the kata. But in how the specifics were done, it was vastly different. I've included the description of the kata below.